In recent years no form of property right has been subject to more serious criticism or evoked more strenuous defence than the right conferred by a patent of invention. In Canada, which has so far been a patent-dependent economy, i.e. utilizing largely imported patents, it has taken somewhat longer for the issues to be brought into sharp focus. Dr. Fox's paper serves as a rallying-point for the defence. As one of the leading authorities on Canadian patent law and as an outstanding industrialist of St. Catharines, Ontario, with practical experience in marketing patented articles on both the domestic and international markets, his views deserve respect. Any apparent presumption in taking issue with some of Dr. Fox's statements and conclusions is justified only by the fact that his subject was not confined to patents but raised implications respecting legal and economic aspects of monopolies and restraints of trade and respecting some general principles of public administration and enforcement of criminal and regulatory laws affecting business.
Dr. Fox suggests that the abuses of patents which have been the subject of much discussion and criticism in the United States and other countries with reference to the activities of domestic and international cartels cannot and do not occur in Canada. He claims that the remedies provided by the Canadian Patent Act, the Statute of Monopolies, and the Combines Investigation Act prevent such abuses from arising. He suggests that because these supposedly adequate remedies have only very rarely been invoked such abuses do not exist in Canada. His vigorous exposition of this theme is supplemented by well-deserved encomium of the Canadian patent system in its technical aspects and by a perhaps less deserved condemnation of all who suggest that patents, like corporations and other law-created instruments of trade and commerce, can sometimes be misused.